


Crashing Passions

by Imriel_Montreve



Category: Pocket Monsters: Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire | Pokemon Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire Versions
Genre: Aftercare, Beach Sex, Docking, Established Relationship, M/M, Oral Sex, Porn with Feelings, Underwater Blow Jobs, originshipping, top steven
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:13:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23171506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imriel_Montreve/pseuds/Imriel_Montreve
Summary: Passions like tiding waves rise and fall with the cycle of the moon, and Hoenn’s Champions find themselves wandering the cypress dappled shores of Mossdeep with none of the emotion lost unto them. What began as a simple linking of fingers leads to promises of more and a union under the stars.
Relationships: Mikuri | Wallace/Tsuwabuki Daigo | Steven Stone
Comments: 6
Kudos: 23





	Crashing Passions

**Author's Note:**

> [A/N]: Damn I haven’t written in… seven years? I really thought that Piers and Raihan would be the ones to dredge up the desire, but a coworker reminded me of just how lovely Wallace and Steven are together and for the past three days I have flailed with my good friend @Luna_Trancy on a scene between the two of them. It needs to be written. With that, what better homecoming than to write for my favorite region which I know better than my fingerprints?  
> Listening to: Magnet (Clear+Dasoku Version), The GazettE, Soothing Piano for Baby
> 
> Thank you to @abitginger for beta reading!
> 
> 3rd Person, Wallace-centric POV

Mossdeep City was quiet by every sense of the word. The small township safeguarded Steven Stone from the bustle of Rustboro where Silph Co. Headquarters was situated, and the stark contrast between the two cities did not go missed by Wallace at all as he looked over his lover. Seated opposite the other at the simple table in the dining nook of Steven’s cottage, the Water Leader drank in the breeze that came through the open window, salt-spiked and calm. The sheer curtains fluttered inward with the steady breath of the sea and the gentle thrum of the shore miles away played overture for their dusky conversations. He was used to tranquility by birthright as a Sootopolitan, nurtured by the mirror-still shores of the basin, but Mossdeep had so much more than just a simple calm air. It was comforting, quaint, and an absolute perfect respite for Hoenn’s Champion. To the region, Steven was an unyielding steel rod, a trainer polite and confident who never showed a glimmer of weakness. Yes, he was all of these to Wallace as well, but in their years shared at each other’s side he had known Steven and learned his language, able to see the subtle tells of the wear being in the spotlight caused him. From the occasional slouch of the shoulders, corrected promptly once detected, to the slight crinkle in the corner of his eye and a millimeter less of his normal, charming smile, Wallace watched these fade away as soon as they landed on the shores of the remote Island. Despite their respective roles as Champion and Top Leader – though the prior appellation shared as Wallace held the current Champion title – demanded their presence and kept them away at times, this was home.

“All that I’m saying,” Steven declared after a sip of jasmine tea, drawing Wallace from his thoughts and back into the present tête-à-tête, “is that the mineral content of the water of Meteor Falls is indicative of sapphire deposits higher up in the caves.”

Steven looked pensively down into the shoal cup in his hand and gave a frown. “But I couldn’t ever possibly bring up these findings.”

Wallace’s lips still held the grace of his earlier reverie, but he quickly caught himself and affixed the appropriate amount of concern necessary for the conversation. “And why is that, love?”

“It would lead to over-mining and utter destruction of the habitat. There are Pokémon deep in those caves that aren’t present anywhere else in all of Hoenn. It doesn’t warrant thinking.”

Emotion, adoring and intemperate, flooded through Wallace’s breast at the gentle concern held within his lover’s words, much as they did on nights their conversations outlasted flame and wick to wear on until dawn. They were not that far gone, yet, but they had been talking at length for hours and Wallace began to notice the tightening in his throat was not only rising love but also from feeling parched. The sunset came and went, replaced by a swollen moon. The two Champions enjoyed the other’s presence deeply, and their conversations were as calm as the rain-made lakes scattered about their region and as deep as their depths. Wallace could maintain his cool, but he was not unmoved by Steven’s presence, and even now reminders of his love for the silver-eyed gentleman in front of him were sounding off with coronary pirouettes against his sternum. That was one of the beautiful things about Steven, he was so conscious. Wallace would lay down a full challenger’s winnings from his gym on the roulette reels in Mauville that Steven was burning with the knowledge that he might possibly find a precious stone, but his concern for the environment and his impact upon it overruled any of his own personal desires.

Wallace must have been visibly fawning at this point because Steven had taken notice to him and doled out an amused smile. “What. What have I done this time?”

The current champion smiled in earnest this time, showing off his dazzling white teeth. He had once remarked about “pearly whites”, but Steven had then informed him that pearls, more often than not, were grey. “You are just such a wonderful man.”

Wallace rose to his feet with a light scoot of his chair, wood on stone flooring alerting of his movement sooner than the graceful rise of his actions. “Caring, careful, stunning...” he continued.

Each descriptor brought him closer to his relaxed lover until lithe arms encased Steven’s head as he settled himself into the man’s accommodating lap stomach-to-stomach. A chuckle built in Steven’s chest and he tilted his head back to meet Wallace’s green-amethyst gaze. His smile worked its way up into his silver eyes, softening into a look of love for the man. One hand cast out like a line and drew in Wallace’s catch-of-the-day waist to net him safely atop his thighs, while the left companion rose to draw through the tight turquoise curl that bounced artfully beside his high cheek bone.

“Hush, you,” Steven threatened with all the malice of Swablu hatchling, looping the curl around his index finger while minding himself not to snare the lock in his steel rings. He released it shortly after spreading the strands with his thumb, to which the curl indignantly snapped back into place.

Wallace tilted his head to the side and pillowed it atop of Steven’s with a happy sigh, which gave Steven access to kiss the hollow of his throat with a bit of nosing to the fabric of the collar away. It had been a lazy day for the two of them, rising early and sharing the other’s company. Both men were incredibly put together in their appearances, though with the lull of the day Wallace was dressed down in a cornflower blouse that revealed a whisper of his shoulders over billowy white linen pants. In lieu of the heady cologne that would have otherwise clung to his flesh and perfumed the air around him – a scent which always reminded Steven of clandestine meetings between duties and exhibition battles – Wallace’s natural scent washed over him in what Steven could only describe as _warm_ mixed with the flowered fragrance from his hair’s last wash. Wallace shivered in his embrace at the languid kiss and pulled back from Steven’s gentle mouth.

“Let’s go for a walk,” he hummed, the desire to be one with the night and the breeze anchored only by the cool touch of his lover stirring a wanderlust in his core and the soles of his feet.

Steven settled for tracing his palms over Wallace’s sides instead. “At this hour?” There was no trace of a ‘no’ to be had in his words, only amusement.

“Yes!” Wallace trilled and rose with a sweeping motion, the little crystal stars dangling from the pointed tips of his sleeves twinkling from the movement. “ _At this hour_ when the moon is at its zenith, glowing and bathing all of Mossdeep under silver light–" Wallace twirled back to Steven, who had stood up from his chair and watched his love with one hand on his cocked hip, “—I have to see you underneath it.”

Silver met green once more and passed unspoken exchanges. “Surely it is I that needs to see you.”

“Smooth, Mr. Stone. Afford me a few moments, would you?”

Before Steven could affirm or protest, Wallace meandered off under the archway that segued into their bedroom. Steven took the time to drink off the rest of his tea, noting with a face that it had gone cool, and to find his suit jacket to shoulder into. He, too, was dressed casually akin to Wallace, opting for a slate grey button down over dark pants. The jacket was just to afford a bit of protection against the sea breeze, but it added a layer of extra comfort. Wallace returned to Steven’s side, sporting his strapped sandals and a knit shawl tastefully draped around his shoulders.

“The cape was too much,” he supplied with a wave of his wrist and gestured to the shawl. It shared the same hue of the gossamer that usually adorned his shoulders, although this garment instead provided a bit of function over form.

“Too much? For you?” Steven chuckled behind his hand and led them out of the cottage, making sure to offer the opposite one to ease the taller man down the half step to the cobblestone pathway. “I didn’t think such a thing to be possible!”

The strut of Wallace’s heels as he playfully turned away in mock offense played wandering notes alone, landing the role as one of the few sounds present in the still night.

The couple set off through the city, the only beings alive as the rest of the world slept under the full moon, heavy and bright white against the royal blue skies. Stars spilled across the sky in a skittering of diamonds in a demonstration of just how clear the night was, a cloudless expanse blanketing over the two of them. Steven’s already fair hair bleached in the moonlight and delighted Wallace, who turned back to coax his lover along down to where stone gave way into sand and sprawling lavender beaches. Rolling hips took the Water Leader down the steep steps where sand had blown over the last of the stone path. It was here that he gently knelt to unbuckle his heels and slip his slender foot free from his shoe. He wriggled his toes to get a feel of the sand, only for the linen of his pants to fall over his feet. Steven admired the grace in which Wallace rose and folded the wave of his hair behind his ear to stave off the breeze before pairing his shoes and tucking them against the concluding step. 

“Come, no one will trouble them,” he crooned, and that was all the encouragement Steven needed before he was toeing off his own shoes and aligning them neatly with a guiding tap of his foot next to Wallace’s. Wallace reached for Steven’s hand and interlaced their fingers, giving a content hum at the cool feel of them. Their temperatures usually matched, a complement of cool slate and cool water balanced. The taller man encouraged the gentlest of pulls at Steven’s hand to lead them down the beach.

They pressed further to where cypress trees dappled the shores and cast deep shadows on the sands that blended into the lap of the water. Steven raised a hand to cast his own shadow, amused at the brilliancy of the moon, and Wallace, drawn in by the glimmering of steel at the man’s fingers, beckoned for the outstretched digits. As Steven moved to close the distance between the two of them, Wallace let his shawl glimmer down his shoulders and tossed it Steven’s way. It wrapped around his face, which startled him until he registered the softness of the fabric and who owned it. With vision obscured, he reached to pull the garment from his view – though he lingered at the left-over scent of Wallace’s cologne from times before. When he could see once more, Wallace had shed his blouse and began to slip the linen pants down his slender calves. He rose from the pile of fabric to generously display his body for his lover, and moonlight kissed the soft expanses of flesh, leaving behind pools of shadow in the depths of his collar bones and dips of his hips. Wallace trailed his fingertips up his long arms and down his chest, giving a shiver when he brushed over a stiff nipple. Steven’s jaw had hit the sand somewhere around the same time as Wallace’s pants, and he had yet to find the grace to pick it back up.

Now clad in only his beret and a sliver of violet fabric held in place over his groin by a few pieces of string, he reached up to pull said hat from its carefully poised position without mussing his hair. “Do you see something that you like, Steven?”

The hat joined the pile and his thong was quickly chasing. 

Wallace kept his seafoam hair tucked in a Lumoise twist, which to Steven, who didn’t up keep the naming conventions of popular hairstyles nearly as well as he did with rare stones, looked like a fluid whorl of his hair gathered at the back of his head, tucked in on itself, and secured with a hidden pin. Wallace’s visage never fell from the silver gaze boring into him while slender fingers found the hair pin and released the tight twist. Silk rippled thickly in a shining rush down Wallace’s back in an unwinding spiral and settled against his bare buttocks. Seeing Wallace’s hair down was a rare sight, one Steven found breath taking each time. Turquoise locks were split by cresting masts and fanned straight in a swell which foamed around his shoulders, a sight that sailors would warn novice deckhands against lest they chased the mirage and drowned to their deaths.

With effort, Steven found words to answer Wallace’s liquid voice. “Only the most beautiful gem I’ve ever had the pleasure of adding to my collection.”

“Surely to be one of the hardest as well,” Wallace returned with a smile playing on his lips, knowing how to return rock-based flirtation with the plethora of double entendres in his arsenal. He stepped back, dancing away and beckoning his lover along all the while never breaking their eye contact.

Steven’s amusement highlighted under the light of the moon, smile on display as his footprints filled those left by Wallace. “Maybe with a bit of curing and careful handling you’ll achieve peak hardness.”

Twinkling laughter pealed high in the clear air at the comment and sparked the low rumble of Steven’s own, blending into song with the susurrus of the surf lapping the shore. “Don’t be so banal, you silly fool!”

When his bare feet met the cool water, Wallace gave a noise of jubilant surprise and turned from Steven with a coy look cast from over the shoulder. His eyes cut to allure, though the covert glance slipped away when he turned. Steven was left staring at the green river that rushed down over sharp shoulder blades.

Wallace was thigh deep now, which caused him to draw in a quick, giddy breath. “Won’t you join me, Mr. Stone?”

Steven marveled at the vision of Wallace’s half-submerged form and let the hunger of his eyes show as he drank in the cream expanses of nude flesh and let the longing fully overcome him. He admired Wallace, adored, treasured the man, and seeing his lover waiting for him, beckoning him to the surf with promises of returned passion, swelled a fierce thirst through him. He met the call with an affirmative nod and worked at the buttons of his shirt. The grey fabric was abandoned to the pile in without the usual care either of them showed clothing – Steven much too eager to meet Wallace to bother with taking the time to fold his garments – and then his pants quickly emulated.

“Ah ah ah, those too, darling!” Wallace called out to him, indicating the boxer briefs that upheld Steven’s last bit of modesty.

Steven chuckled, smiled, and managed to look both utterly confident and just the tiniest bit miffed at the request, but he was soon bending over and stepping from the material to bear everything to the man begging to be joined in his undressed plunge in the dark agate waters. Wallace, in a demonstration of his strong swimming skills, floated on his back in the rocking crests and gave a little wave of his foot as Steven approached the water.

“Is it cold?” A sensible question from a sensible man.

“Moderately so, brisk,” Wallace answered and waded back up to the shallows, “but I do promise I will warm you up.”

They met as Steven’s shins hit the water and he laughed through a rolling shudder at the chill of the water. Wallace joined in his mirth and met Steven in a wave-crash of cool limbs and cooler lips. Steven’s hands gripped Wallace’s thighs as they pressed against his own and noted how the chill of the water had already set into them. It was made more apparent as cold hands cupped his cheeks and his cold lips swallowed down fleeting laughter after being pulled closer. Wallace kissed him between light twitters of his laughter, quick, gentle, a display of genuine enjoyment for his companion’s presence. Steven returned the pecks, but it was he who captured Wallace and pinned him into a deeper kiss. His body responded in a lurch of pleasure that dropped right to the basin of his lower stomach from the kiss alone, though the warm feel of both of their softened members pressed flush with one another did not go unnoticed. Wallace swooned in his arms, feeling himself heat up quicker than Steven at the passion behind the man’s swift kiss and allowed himself to be held tight against him. His own soft lips met each kiss in earnest, savoring just the give and feel of a pliant mouth and all the suppleness found there before he moved them deeper into the surf. Too often men forgot the delight and simplicity of kissing, how intimate the act of allowing another person to share their breathing and their flesh with you; Wallace did not forsake this visceral union. Steven controlled his intakes with each press of his mouth, and Wallace allowed it, knowing in return when he sought entrance into the other’s with his tongue it would be granted in trust. Steven’s jaw fell open a bit to offer Wallace free reign of their kiss, who took the opening and slid the silk of his tongue over the top of Steven’s own. The grinding of the two was less a battle of dominance and more the familiar dance of a sparring mate who knew intimate patterns and played off them for personal blows. The tandem gambol of their knotting tongues was halted only by a gasp from Wallace as Steven gripped with a firm hand in his hair. He moaned and melded at the hair pull, half aroused by the sensation and then pushed the rest of the way by the affectation of credence he had for the man.

Wallace felt himself stiffen in response and wriggled within Steven’s embrace to drop a hand low and give an affectionate squeeze to the man’s semi-hard cock. Steven moaned in appreciation into Wallace’s mouth and followed the touch as Wallace backed deeper into the water, refusing to break contact with either the kiss or the steady palming. The surf surged around their hips and Steven released another breathy gasp, shuddering at the jarring temperature of the water.

“It’s a little more than brisk!”

“Don’t worry, you will warm up as you get used to it.” Wallace’s languorous palming became long pulls at the crescive phallus in his hand. “See? You’re already acclimating!”

Steven pushed into Wallace from need in a purely instinctive response, though once his mind caught up with his body he delicately drew the tip of his nose along Wallace’s throat and jaw-line. He drew in a breath through the nuzzle and allowed his exhale to transcend into a breathy moan in Wallace’s ear as the swell of his cockhead was squeezed and his slit thumbed under the ministrations of a deft left hand. “ _Wallace_ —“

He refused to halt his motions and worked his tight grip down to the base of Steven’s smooth cock. He anchored himself by the member to aid his bracing in the soft silt-blend of the seafloor. Wallace moaned because he could, a throaty sound rife with appreciation for the thick appendage he was working into fervor, his own neglected and wanting. It would wait; Wallace focused strictly on pleasuring his lover and warming him as promised. It was working; both of the men rocked by the waves felt the heat of their coupling building. His stomach tightened from a pleasant burst of arousal when Steven gave another soft moan for him. To Wallace the man sounded starved and decimated, as though affection and pleasure were foreign and to feel them together such as this were undoing him at the very seams of his soul. This incited a fierceness in Wallace’s chest that drew on the love held and converted it directly into sexual energy. He wanted nothing more than to be the cause of those noises, to never fail to demonstrate to Steven that he was treasured and adored, to build upon their entrustment by giving him this physical act that few had tasted the intimacy of. Both parties panted bursts of “ _Yes_!” in a call and response of encouragement and affirmation, Wallace’s translating into “ _Yes, you are doing so well. Keep going, I love to see you like this_ ” and Steven’s into “ _Yes, please continue in that manner, I am building up only to become undone._ ”

When Steven came to his full length and hardness – _like steel in my palm_ , Wallace mused – the Sootopolitan Champion slowed his strokes and looked up into Steven’s affected mire. He was panting still, and there were the traces of flush on his cheeks that fought against the bleaching moonbeams. The light might have lost at his cheeks, but it rose in full splendor from his lashes and silver gaze. Thick nettles of steel, water-spiked and heavy, reflected an aureole that caused a glowing of his moonstone gaze. Steven’s eyes were lidded from their shared solace and the intensity in which he held Wallace’s green gaze allowed the man to see the full allure of his lover bared to him. Beauty, intelligence, and elegance were the foundation of Wallace’s values and Steven fulfilled all of these in raw measures of each category. He was physically attractive, a compliment to Wallace, carried himself with dignity, had a mind and heart clearer than refined crystal, and Wallace held all of that in the confines of his passionate embrace.

“Do you trust me?” Wallace knew the answer after all their years together, though regardless it was a question he asked frequently.

It was a simple enough request in this regard, Steven knew that, but he didn’t miss the chance to acknowledge the underlying sentiments.

“Yes, with my life.”

And it was true. Wallace had demonstrated his prolific skills as a trainer and had saved Steven’s life on more than one occasion. When the beasts of Hoenn’s legends rose from their slumber and threatened to rip their world asunder, it was Wallace that had found a means to end the deluge. Steven could remember Wallace asking him that very same question as rain pounded down around them and Wallace’s face then, hair rain-splattered to his cheeks and forehead and the panic controlled in bright green eyes. _“Do you trust me?!” “I’m not in a position to not! Yes, I do!”_ He remembered that as soon as the exchange passed they were hurtling from the side of a cliff into a churning ocean below locked tightly together in embrace. He remembered how Wallace managed to control his Milotic mid fall and commanded her to break the surface of the black waters with a Water Pulse and catch them safely underwater. Wallace had breathed his own breath into Steven then and propelled them to the surface single-handedly, where they rose coughing and sputtering but alive.

With that between them, no act big or small, from a question of _“Can I touch you here? Can I do this for you?”_ to _“Would you spend your life with me?”_ trust was given without restraint.

“Then I will hold that life in mine and make every passing moment one of love.” Wallace, with open palms braced for balance, bowed his head to kiss Steven’s firm chest before he descended below the surface of the water.

Steven was sure that he would never get over the small anxiety water gave him even for all the swim lessons Wallace had given him, and for how often they spent time in the ocean. Wallace out of sight in the dark water was not helping that. He felt a rush of water torrent around him and effervesce to the surface, no doubt the product of a kick from Wallace’s powerful, graceful legs. The ever-present anxiety spiked at the knowledge his lover had swam away, rising on the fringe of fear in his breast. Steven closed his eyes and focused on bracing himself in the silt-sand underfoot from the rough sway of the breeze-stirred waves.

Wallace surfaced in a mess of soaked turquoise locks and dripping rivulets of sea water some meters away from Steven. Twin hands severed off to either side of his face and once he pushed back his hair from his pluvial eyes, Steven came into focus. Wallace could see he had closed his eyes and with smirk-tilted lips he knew it was Steven’s attempt not to fret. He filled his lungs deeply and dove back under, having no trouble seeking his lover under the waves. The sea was dark, yes, but the moon overhead beat down into the water and lit a submerged pathway to the grounded pillar of the former champion’s steel frame.

Steven had resorted to counting his breaths at this point, too hyper-aware of the deafening sounds of the eager breeze and the crash of the waves on the numerous shores around them to sense the movement of Wallace’s return. He jolted when Wallace placed his fingertips on his thighs – still below the water – in what felt like a bracing manner. “Wallace?”

His voice went unheard, naturally, but Wallace was prepared to answer the call in his own manner. He held onto Steven and gently fluttered his ankles to keep him in place and steeled himself. The burn of needing to breathe had yet to settle into his chest, but his intent would require resolute will power to continue once it did.

Before Steven’s hands could reach beneath the waves to surface his partner, Wallace parted his lips and took the still-hard cock he’d abandoned into his mouth. Once he had expelled the influx of sea water, no space existed between the warm softness of his mouth and the rigid length of Steven’s cock. Wallace delighted in the feel of having his mouth filled by the cock-head, devout in his pleasure at suckling until he brought forth the taste of Steven’s bitter salt. He felt Steven lurch forward by way of reflex and steadied against him by drawing his arms around his hips and sinking his fingertips into the firm globes of his lover’s muscular ass.

Surface-side, Steven gave a rough gasp as a particularly heavy pull of Wallace’s mouth caused a multi-faceted rush of pleasure to tighten his nipples, stomach, and sac. The element of surprised dredged up his arousal and when coupled with Wallace’s talented mouth – he was grinding his tongue along the underside of Steven’s cock _while_ he sucked, for Arceus’ sake – and Steven had to lock his arms tight behind the back of his head to ensure he wouldn’t pull Wallace close and thrust into his ministrations. Heat flooded through him and earned another moan as his cock swelled in Wallace’s soft mouth. The underside of his head was afforded the most attention, with the occasional dart of the tongue-tip to his slit, and Steven was sure this was to be his undoing. It was careful, intentional – Wallace knew what Steven liked.

Wallace was able to hold his breath longer than most from years of subjecting his body to an intense, quotidian swimming regimen. Daybreak began with Meditating under waterfalls, midday was filled with diving and breathing exercises alongside training his team, and his nights were spent purely appreciating the water’s edge. He’d learned to swim beneath waterfalls and free dive from the surface of Route 126 to the cavern entrance of Sootopolis. Comparatively, tonguing his lover’s shaft in the shallows of Mossdeep was a cakewalk.

“ _Wallace_ ,” Steven bit out from around a knuckle he had pressed to his lips. He could feel his will weakening and did not want to finish like this. Wallace teased for sport and was relentless, Steven knew this.

Wallace felt Steven’s hands plunge below the surface and gently ease him up flush against his body. His first breath was deep and needful and then shuddered out against Steven’s chest. Only his nose and lips peeked out from behind the straight curtain of his wet hair, the latter of which split by a bashful grin. “Hello there, Love.”

Steven, regaining control of his composure, lifted Wallace to his chest with an arm snared behind the bend of his knees. With a tender hand Steven brushed the wet strands out of Wallace’s eyes and cupped his cheek. Eyes unclouded, a tender look transpired before he bent to kiss away the salt.

“You didn’t jest when you said you would warm me,” Steven breathed against his kiss-swollen mouth when their lips parted.

“I never do,” Wallace replied in a voice that was throaty and thick with want. “Do you want more? I certainly do.”

He gracefully rolled from Steven’s arms with a gentle splash and righted his footing against the seabed. When he found the man’s fingers he locked them together with his own and guided him further. “It’s a bit of a swim, but nothing you can’t handle.”

Steven’s tongue grazed along his upper lip in an absent-minded display of his hunger at the sound of Wallace’s words. It was when his voice began to be affected that Steven knew Wallace had met a state of no return and needed tending to. This, of course, earned no complaint from the senior Champion.

“Show me what you had in mind.”

Wallace required no further encouragement and pulled Steven along with him, urging the man to follow him. Wallace released his hand and turned toward the oncoming waves. He was swifter swimming underwater, but for Steven’s sake he broke into a breaststroke. Strong arms cut the current toward where the topography of the shallows rose into a small sandbar that could mistakenly be considered a tiny islet. They swam in line to the embankment until the floor began to shallow out once more and they could touch. Wallace swam further than Steven had, who instead walked as soon as the silt leveled out beneath his toes and he could touch. Wallace noted with amusement that Steven liked to be grounded just like the stubborn rocks he spent his life hunting.

It was perfect here, a secluded island for the two of them to remain unbothered on. The embankment was far enough out that no citizen of Mossdeep or errant swimmer would intrude on their illicit evening. A lone cypress towered at the corner of the false-island and cast deep indigo shadows on the lavender sands. The leaves provided a buffer from the westerly draft that blew in toward Mossdeep, and beneath the silver of the moon all fell into serenity. The glass-smooth shore was lapped at with a gentle foam that washed over Wallace’s feet as he stood where the sea overlay the land waiting for his wading lover. Steven took his time ambling through the tides to enjoy the visions of Wallace before him. He stood upon the mirror’s edge as the swollen sands absorbed the lambency of the moon and shone white with the intensity of hot metal. Wallace’s breeze-blown hair had already started to dry from the salt and the breeze, whispering around his hips in coils and snapping at his ribs and shoulders in waves. He spun from Steven’s gaze and drove his hands upward to the moon. What seemed to be celestial praise for the glowing disc turned selfish introspection; his arms traveled down themselves, hands winding and heretic, touching his own flesh and savoring the feel of being unbound by clothing. He, too, was aroused and on display for Steven.

Wallace tilted in a lazy sprawl, grace indolent, and settled himself against the slope of the shore as Steven finally made it to where the water only met his ankles. Wallace let his head fall back into the fine sands, looking up at his lover above.

“I have yet to fathom how I share my life with one as gorgeous as you.” Steven’s voice thrummed low in his chest as his steel gaze cast over Wallace’s outstretched form, his hair in fan above him, wrists laying on the blue-green locks and crossed above his head, his body drawn tight as he arched, weight rested on his left hip as his thighs tucked together from the crossed ankles that matched his wrists. If Steven had not watched the man cutting in flawless grace through the waves and the crusade of his deft limbs, he would have thought Wallace to be bound helpless on the beach by lines and rope, waiting to be used by the first stranger to encounter him. The tuck of his thighs did nothing to hide the proud stance of his cock, his head swollen enough to be visible from its natural protection. Steven’s eyes took their time to arrive to this glance, having spent most of it drinking in the arc of his chest. Another draught of Wallace, for the way his porcelain skin pulled over muscle and matter, ribs on display, before shallowly dipping to his navel and rising up to jutting hip bones. The taut V of Wallace’s toned lower stomach remained on exhibit usually from his choice attire, but it was an entirely different sight when bared and angled and with a few centimeters’ shift of the eye the view could descry sparse, maintained wisps of blue that haloed his shaft. 

Steven firmly stepped in front of his supine lover and indicated with a foot tap for Wallace to part his thighs to grant him purchase between them. Wallace obliged with a chest-swelling sigh and ran his adroit hands to his thighs and made a show of parting them. Steven knelt with his weight on one knee between the lissome twins of his legs and maintained his balance with his foot on the outside of Wallace’s hip. There was bending, arching, and meeting. Steven framed Wallace’s form with rigid limbs built from years of hiking and traversing mountains. A shift in his shoulders brought him low to kiss Wallace with ardor unchained; the elder male’s lip netted between both of Steven’s, embraced, sucked, and cherished while the heat of his tongue sought entrance to the wet cavern of Wallace’s waiting mouth. Wallace arched to enmesh in the net of his kiss and traced the strong arms that caged him, memory mapping each groove and dip of the man whom he had known by every definition of the word. There was an acute awareness of the space between them and the lack of contact as Steven supported himself that drove a _need_ to have _something_ touch his straining cock that left him pulling and bucking and kissing for attention. One hand left Steven’s bicep and slipped between them to give a heady pull to the engorged cock lazily hanging against Steven’s thigh striving to stroke him down to himself. Steven gave slightly and lowered his hips into the touch enough for the bell-end of their shafts to meet. Heat flooded through each of them at the contact and they shared a groan into their broken kiss; Steven throbbing with want in Wallace’s hand, and the man below him clenching in response to the exquisite pleasure of anticipation. Wallace’s stomach and sac felt heavy and he could feel his tip weeping, the clear serum of his tangible pleasure capsizing under its own weight and dribbling down the thick cord of vein of his cock’s underside. He moaned and held both of their tips in one hand, stroking himself upward to engulf Steven’s head into the uncut flesh of his cock. He moaned as pleasure shot through him from where their cocks connected up into his chest and squeezed both of their members. Steven emitted a noise limned against his vocal cords in the aspect of a strained growl at the pressure of Wallace’s hand in harmony with the wet press of his seeping tip.

Their union grew sharper as need took over and their bodies sought to chase the surmounting desires. Steven lifted his hips to break the hold Wallace had on him to then drive them down excruciatingly slow and drag his thick erection down the lithe length of Wallace’s.

The resulting burst of celluloid behind his eyes and in his core tore his name from his lover’s lips. “Steven!” Wallace bit down on a moan and threatened to bruise his supple lower hip and whined through his nose. “ _Please_ touch me.”

As he begged he reached to find one of Steven’s hands and urged him to push it between his thighs. Both of his hands wrapped around Steven’s and separated his middle digit from the rest of his fingers. “Please.”

The suppliant words of his partner made Steven’s hips surge and he was readily compliant when Wallace was pushing and prodding at his fingers. Desire effluxed through him and he exhaled his need when Wallace guided the pad of his finger to his deprived hole.

“Like this?” Steven found it in him to question, concerned that his finger was dry and Wallace hadn’t been touched at all here. He was not afforded the opportunity of further protest as Wallace drove his hips up and caused the slightest give to his arse.

Steven obliged him then, slipping in to the first knuckle and noting an absence of resistance. Wallace’s soft, pleased moan was drowned out by Steven’s sharp gasp of surprise.

"You’re prepared.”

“Yes, right before we left,” Wallace provided in explanation. Both hands dipped down to encourage the push of Steven’s middle finger further inside his body. “So please, go with abandon and _touch me._ ”

The prelude has passed – this was their rising act. Both men were of a calm disposition, but the difference between Steven and Wallace was just how long that patience lasted. Steven could maintain composure through most any difficult task – Wallace barely filled a hand when counting on his fingers the number of times he had seen Steven lose his temper or be truly upset; those times also didn’t warrant thinking. Wallace, however, submitted to desire and let his needs drive him. He was impatient and writhing with the want to be consumed, overwhelmed, and more than any he wanted Steven to touch him.

Steven would, naturally, but in due time.

He withdrew his finger from Wallace, who whined indignantly and arched his hips to follow the recoil of Steven’s hand.

“Not _fair_ ,” he hissed, eyes opening wide and his pink tongue darting out in a soft pant. He had but the faintest taste of Steven’s lithe finger and it was not enough to quell the burning that was now ignited in his core. Everything was heavy with need, his cock, his sac, the pleasure in the pool of his lower stomach, and Steven’s absence worsened the ache.

A soft laugh fell from Steven as he looked down at Wallace, adoring his lover’s innocent frustration. Tides turned in the man as he assumed control of their sexual rendezvous, taking delight in Wallace’s undoing. His gaze was sharp, intense, but above all deliberate.

“Don’t be petulant,” he crooned down to Wallace, using his fingertips to push his hips back down and ghost over his shaft. The movement sent a shudder through Wallace which Steven homed in on and set about eliciting again and again. Wallace’s pliant cock rested against the dip of his stomach, jolting with his excitement. Steven grazed his fingertips from the base up over the vein underneath and back down, motions light like the lilting surf ebbing at Wallace’s hips.

It was the lightest of touches and did little more than cause a hitch in Wallace’s breath. The portion that actually worked the Water Leader up was the control in Steven’s gaze and the calculated manner he was touched. Steven knew just what he was doing, knew how to torture a moan from Wallace, how to agonize an animalistic thrust for more. His palm grazed over Wallace’s sac and he gently rolled the heavy flesh in his hand. Reward came by way of a heavy bead of precum dribbling from Wallace’s slit in a glinting rush down the length and onto the heel of his palm. The sensation of wetness drew his blue-grey eyes from his steely hold over Wallace’s down to where his freshly wet palm shimmered in the evidence of pleasure.

Wallace watched through the aquamarine wisps of his lashes as Steven drew his hand up to his mouth and licked his lover’s essence from him. He sucked the last bit of Wallace’s sea salt taste from his palm in a display of what his mouth could be doing elsewhere and when his gaze cut down to Wallace and he spoke, his voice was gravelly with provocation.

“I am going to give you every inch of my body and drive you to scream my name.”

Steven rarely spoke in such crude manner, attestation to how engaged he was. His own pleasure was worlds away from the forefront of his attentions now; it was Wallace’s that drew his focus and singularized all his movements submerge, no drown him in the heat that coursed through his veins and burned an imprint of Steven within him.

“And I will give all that I am to you.” Wallace rocked his hips down and opened his thighs to allow Steven to take anything he wanted. “Please, Steven. I can’t suffer this need any longer.”

Wallace dipped his hand down to press his fingers inside his slick passage as an invitation for Steven to both watch and take over for him. Ring and middle fingers dipped into his opening and pumped to the second joint and out again. He moaned at the visceral, exterior pleasure that spread differently from that which pooled in his core while Steven worked against his resistance to splay his fingers to ease his tightness. The warm rumble of Steven’s groan fell over him and the man’s hand came down to mirror around his, adding his middle digit to the mix of fingers inside Wallace’s warmth. Wallace bowed up from the sand for leverage to press down on Steven’s finger, craving the full feeling that being stretched had to offer absolutely certain this wasn’t enough. Steven replaced Wallace’s fingers entirely with his own and worked the upkeep of loosening the current Champion in preparation for his cock. Speaking of which, Steven’s engorged cock hung low and exposed from his kneeling position and occasionally bumped into Wallace’s inner knee, to which he took notice and raised his knee up into Steven’s groin to supply ground for him to rut against. He arched his hips up from the swelling surf and balanced on his toes as he worked his leg against Steven’s cut shaft. The rolling movement of his leg heightened the pleasure from the plunge of Steven’s fingers, who was now three deep and to the knuckle.

“You’re trying to drive me mad, aren’t you!” Wallace threw his head back into the sand and raised his willowy shoulders trying to curl into the pleasure. He then undulated and bowed up out of the surf in an arc so sharp one would think his spine broken. He was an incredibly flexible man, and if that wasn’t displayed in the graceful way he swam, he certainly showcased these skills in the bedroom.

“Mayhap,” Steven murmured toward him, looking at him through a sly, lidded gaze. “I have yet to hear you truly sing for me.”

Wallace wasn’t aware of Steven’s intent until he met his arch with a plunge of his fingers as deep into the yearning body beneath him as he could and doubled over his center of gravity to meet Wallace’s heaving chest. Lips locked around Wallace’s hardened nipple and Steven drug his tongue over the firm flesh before settling into a hard suck. Teeth came next, pinching and rolling. Pleasure shattered like glass splinters over Wallace’s chest and Steven registered his name being called in a breathless cry.

There it was, he had pushed Wallace to begin his aria.

Wallace moaned loudly, knowing that his cries would be drowned by the waves. Even if they weren’t, let them hear, let anyone who dared to hear him sing his pleasure. His voice praised Steven and rose higher with pleasure the more the man worked his strong hands. Steven’s fingers collided with the give of a soft orb inside Wallace and it was then he knew that he had found the precious stone he was seeking. Wallace screwed his eyes shut and spasmed as Steven drove against the firm knot of nerves deep within him. It was a different manner of torture, causing him to feel right on the edge while knowing he hadn’t had near enough stimulation to spill for Steven. Wallace whimpered helplessly and fisted his hands into Steven’s hair, whose head was still dipped to suckle at his pert chest, and locked his lover against him and _begged._

“Please, Steven, please I need you!” He was babbling and couldn’t find the resolve within him to care less over how foolish he sounded, nothing mattered other than coaxing his lover to fill him and shatter him. Wallace wanted to be so thoroughly split by Steven that the distinction of where he ended and Steven began utterly dissolved. “If you don’t fill me I’m going to break!”

The second removal of Steven’s fingers was grades worse than the first time; Wallace gasped as the feeling of emptiness shocked him and he bit his lip and whimpered for contact. Sirens sounds swallowed by a hungry kiss muffled and fell into pleasured pants, Steven coming off the pec under his attention with an audible pop and moving up to kiss Wallace’s pleas and cries away. His hand fell to his shaft and he stroked himself a few times over, mixing what bit of the lubricant that remained on his fingers from Wallace’s insides with the slight dribble of his pre-seminal fluids over his flared head. Wallace released his death grip on Steven’s pale locks and instead found sanctuary in clinging to his biceps. He watched the crown of Steven’s weeping cock disappear and reappear in his fist as he smeared himself slick, tightening with anticipation. To provide aid, Wallace moved his hands from Steven’s arms to either side of his thighs and parted himself as much as he could.

Steven groaned at the visage of his lover on display for him in carnal grace. These affections were product of their shared desires, their trust in the other, the submission and mutual need for the other. This was no passing tryst, no one-time bed mate, no; this was a union between two people that had found a future, a home, in the other.

Wallace gasped when the tip of Steven’s shaft eased into his offering, not yet filling but most certainly asking for permission. Their eyes met, emotions clashing in typhoons raging between them, a reciprocated understanding of love in all its raw edges. The faintest nod was all the communication needed from Wallace, sure and trusting, and then Steven was sinking to his hilt inside.

Their moans intertwined as the full length of Steven’s cock slipped fast into Wallace, guided by the pull of gravity and the utter lack of resistance from his passage, his groin pressed flush with Wallace’s taint as he sank deep to the root of his core. Wallace felt him still inside him, knowing that he was being given an opportunity to adjust to the sensation of being stretched wide. He gave a whine that sounded like the purest relief, the kind that would be given after coming home on a long weary day. In a way Steven was home, the perfect source of comfort, the one thing that kept Wallace ashore. For a moment, the only sounds that filled the air were the heave of their breathing and the crash of the waves, creating an atmosphere of otherworldly silence, a plane of being wrought only for the pair. Nothing else mattered in the infinite expanse of this small lapse in time but the presence of the other, the solid contact between them. Steven was his rock, anchoring him as the world whirl-pooled around him and he lost a grip on the confines of his body. Wallace felt as though he was expanding ever outward, tethered only by the filament of pleasure beginning at his core and stretching to where Steven fit so naturally inside him.

He was brought back down from his vagary by a subtle, visceral shift in his partner and the calling of his clear voice. “May I move?”

Steven’s voice was soft with concern as he made sure that Wallace was sound and not in pain. Steven watched his eyes flutter open with a loving regard and then received a tilt of a nod, encouraging him. “You may. Don’t hold back on me.”

Steven pulled out to the midline of his shaft. “When have I ever?” And that was all the prelude he needed before plunging back into the heat given freely to him.

Wallace arched up with a cry to steal a greedy kiss from Steven’s smile-parted mouth. “I’m still – Ah – convinced you did during our la-last exhibition battle,” he panted, light and teasing. He spread his legs as far as they would part in attempts to shift the angle Steven’s cock hit. His toes curled in delight as he received the desired outcome and Steven struck his prostate.

“Forgive me for still being affected from your mouth _fifteen minutes_ before we were to take the stadium,” Steven retorted, nipping the side of Wallace’s foot as it rose up close enough to his face to reach. This earned a giggling moan and the flail of the outstretched leg.

Wallace never took much time warming up and adjusting to Steven to take the rough pound of thrusting hips, rather he met them eagerly with an upward roll of his own. Wallace would playfully pin the blame on a healthy sexual appetite and lots of reiteration, but trust and attraction for Steven lent a helping hand. Flesh on flesh sang in a wake of sounds between them and Wallace’s own siren calls, melodious with the chorus of the waves, only made the song that much sweeter. Each time he was filled, a burst of pleasure from the thrust of Steven’s thick head rocking into his sweet spot left him seeing stars clearer than the telescopes of Mossdeep’s Space Center. Steven was equally affected from the coupling of the tight heat enveloping his shaft and the resistance against his sensitive head. He was considerably the quieter of the two, but even he was adding his own notes to the mix in harmonies with low, throaty grunts and impelled exhales that tipped in a half-lament at the ends.

”Steven,” Wallace drew in a breath and let out his name, “put my knee up.” He asked his lover for leverage and felt a burn in his joints as Steven’s broad palm seized the hough of his knee and pushed his leg down to his chest. Steven didn’t think it was possible to go deeper, but having Wallace bent and arching off the moon-mirror sand he lost all understanding of the confines of their skin and what bit counted as whose.

“Yes!” Wallace gasped and threw his arms around Steven’s neck. “Like that!”

Pleased with the confirmation, Steven pushed Wallace’s thigh as far down as the ligament and sinew would give. His storm cloud eyes bore into the valleys of Wallace’s thighs and the rigid rod of his weeping shaft; that familiar lull of carnal hunger, spurred by the visual aspect. Steven sighed his lover’s name and regained his footing to resume the quick fuck of his hips.

A man possessed, Wallace couldn’t contain the cries that left him from the surmounting pleasure wrought by Steven. Hands like binds at Steven’s biceps became snares around his shoulders seeking to brace against the exquisite rocking. His lips found Steven’s throat in an open-mouthed kiss and a grind of his tongue, but this did nothing to silence his wavering whines.

As soon as he felt the arms embrace him Steven knew what was to follow, having a deep understanding of his lover’s idiosyncrasies. For as taut as his shoulders were, his skin was soft from their time in the tides. The first dig, pull, of Wallace’s manicured nails left angry red lines and tore a deep howl from Steven’s lips. It fell into a warbled moan and he dipped his head to the hollow of Wallace’s throat to pant there. Another drag of his nails down his muscled back caused a buck of his hips and a break of his rhythm as the contrasting pleasure found a way to dig into his core. Wallace couldn’t help himself, couldn’t fight the urge to clench his hands on Steven and grip wherever he could find purchase. Steven’s flesh gave under his nails and welted and wept. The delight of knowing his lover would bear the marks of their union cut through his haze of ecstasy enough for Wallace to offer a smile at the thought. Steven dipped into his neck and moaned loudly there at the burn Wallace left behind, fighting the urge to bite into his clavicle. It was an unspoken rule, no, more so an unspoken game between them. Steven never left a single mark on Wallace since his typical attire allotted little privacy. Every glimmer of skin, every peek of his bare back and shoulders, all were victories championing Steven’s intense self control. Wallace, on the other hand, conceded defeat each time in the haunting scratches that laced over Steven’s chiseled shoulders underneath his buttoned up attire. It wasn’t just his proper, business-like choice in style that kept anything but his hands and face covered, it also stemmed from need as Wallace impassioned was incapable of leaving the man without physical testaments to his cloying need.

With Steven so close, Wallace was able to get his mouth on the adamantine line of his neck to place a deep, bruising kiss there. Another made its way to Steven’s collar bone; Wallace noted the taste of salt that was from sweat rather than sea. He licked for more, eyes closed and out of his mind with pleasure. Kisses became bites, ivory teeth pushing porcelain skin to near-breaking, evidence settling in the form of ametrine bruises. The deep amethyst of blood specs flitted through citrine pools under his skin in a stunning display of color against the white of Wallace’s strong teeth. He was delicate, though, in the sense of never breaking the skin. Steven keened under the attention, pleasure unbound at being marked by the one soul in this vast world that called him to harbor. He was owned, he was kept, he was safe.

The burn in Wallace’s inner thigh became more than what he could bear and he gave the faintest push to his knee’s perch on Steven’s arm to be let down. Steven obliged with no break in their rhythm. Their pleasure had reached its height as Steven’s deep thrusting never stopped. He would alternate pulling midway to pulling out to just his head before sliding back down in an unrelenting cadence that drove them both to their peak. Wallace wrapped his long legs around Steven’s hips and held him against him, rolling with each thrust and mimicking his embrace with his arms as well. Steven lifted his head to stare down at Wallace, who had lost his wild fervor and was focusing on deliberate movements to bring Steven to the edge. Their eyes met once Steven dropped a hand to Wallace’s cheek and shifted his support to his left arm instead. Love pulsed from the pit of his chest and through his body in a tide separate from the arousal which roared in his loins. The two bodies of passion whorled but never mixed, rather they fought to flood every last bit of him until only barren shallows remained once these tides destroyed him and receded. Wallace’s lips parted and words failed him, but Steven could read every bit of his SOS as his thighs constricted around his hips and his inner walls clenched down around his ever-pumping shaft. Steven held his gaze, drawing him in, holding him as intimately as he could without tangible bounds. His silver eyes shimmered a bit, wavering with the love he could feel in pinpricks at the misty orbs. The languid aquamarine pools beneath him absorbed all that he reflected, emotions mirrored and matched with infinite intensity as the same gaze bounced between the two surfaces.

It was all too much, and Wallace succumbed first in a wordless cry and a throw of his head back against the divot he had made in the wet sand with his earlier throes. Ecstasy ripped through and rendered him unable to keep his eyes open while he climaxed. His back bowed from the pleasure of his nerves lighting up and firing synapses and signals all through him, demanding that everything that could clench do just so. Steven watched the exhibition and felt Wallace’s body pump around him in time with the pulses of fluid streaming from his tip and over his toned stomach. Wallace heaved, spasmed, and capsized Steven to his own climax shortly after, the vice of his hips locking down on Steven once he gave his final thrust to sheath himself inside. Hilted at the depth of Wallace’s core, the heat of his cum filled his lover. His cock pulsated in back breaking-breaking throbs inside the man below him, his entire body from his biceps to his back to his balls tightened with enough force to snap if any more pressure applied to him. He rode out the crests of his orgasm, feeling his semen spill out from Wallace as he did so. If Steven had not seen him come, he would have thought Wallace was still building up with him for how their breaths matched in harmony. For further instrument to the afterglow, the vice of Wallace’s legs released, trembled, and loosened a little more with each lazy thrust. He, too, closed his eyes with the pleasure until the throbbing in his loins subsided and the heave of his chest stilled into short, quick pants. When they opened again, his Wallace was gazing up at him with all the love in the world.

It is here that romances would draw their conclusion, that stories would end and allow the remainder to wind on in the imaginations of those reading them, but this was no such thing. This was an act between Steven and Wallace alone, and their path would continue interlacing on through time. Caught in the other’s respire, the two came down from their crashing passions and melded together in the gentle surf. Steven rested his head on Wallace’s chest and stroked his hair, lulled by his easy breathing that matched each wave-break on the shores around them. Wallace allowed his form to curl around Steven’s with entwined legs while the comfortable weariness of post-coital exhaustion took over.

They might have dozed off, might have just lain against one another with only the ambient sea song to croon its lullaby, but this was a lapse in time neither of the two would remember as they embraced on the shore. Reality was a funny thing like that when two souls found time to be one and made up for other lost moments. At some point, Wallace attempted to sit up and coax Steven to unsheathe himself once he felt the man finally began to soften. It was careful work for Steven to ease out, Wallace’s body working against them and wanting to keep Steven inside. A low “Relax” was exhaled against his cool, sweat soaked temple, which Wallace met with a soft whimper and tried to settle himself into the feeling of being empty. The chill of the night air settled over their now-still forms and they attempted to sit up in full, the two too exhausted for their own good to the point most of their attempts resulted in a heavy lean on the other shoulder to shoulder. 

Steven was the first to stand and offered a hand to Wallace to lend his stability as the lithe man wobbled to his feet. He white-knuckled Steven for support slumped into his chest.

“It’s been too long,” was chuckled breathlessly against Steven’s cheek. “Next time I’m going to drag myself to Ever Grande so you can’t neglect me.”

Steven supported Wallace by placing an arm around his hip and gently tugging at him until his weight gave and rested against him. “More so me meeting you in Ever Grande, Reigning Champion.”

Steven’s laughter wrapped around Wallace’s sleepy realization. “Oh that’s right, it is me right now.”

They laughed together and walked along the shore arm in arm to where the shallows would allow them to cross back to the mainland without needing to swim. Neither of the men had the strength to keep themselves afloat even with the push of the sea towards home. The waves washed over sore hips and swelled around shivering chests while feet shuffled through the sand silt of the seafloor below.

“Here,” Steven whispered over Wallace’s high cheek bone, “you’re about to drop.”

Steven tucked down to sweep the taller male’s shaking legs from beneath him and lift him to his chest with the aid of the water’s buoyancy. Wallace put his arms around Steven’s neck and laid his cheek against his shoulder, thankful for the solid arms that held his quivering form intact against the threats of nihility. The water washed over Steven’s collar bones at the deepest point of their path midway to the shore. Former anxiety was banished as his desire to care for his lover surged the embankment of fear in tidal waves. The water that pooled against his chest and in the dip of Wallace’s bent body was registered unfazed. The waves lessened, freeing Steven’s shoulders, then ribs, then thighs from their icy grip and then succumbed to gravity’s grip once he returned to land. The change in Wallace’s weight did nothing to phase Steven, his muscular frame clear of signs of strain in carrying the man. Instead, his muscles rolled and stretched under his skin in languid ease from the years of mountain hiking and exploration which had sculpted his body into an efficient apparatus. A bit of carnality rushed through Wallace and his exhausted haze at how easily Steven carried him and he left a wet kiss at the man’s throat.

Steven tread through the sand with soft chuckles at the tickling kisses Wallace afforded him. When he at last made it to where they had folded and hidden their clothes, he let Wallace’s feet gently meet the soft sands and helped him to stand up. They shared another glance, love written on their lips and in the glistening of their eyes. Wallace could see his future in those slate grey eyes, and Steven saw his reflected right back at him. They were made for the other, placed here to coexist and function both together and apart and build up the other. Nothing more and nothing less.

The look was broken once Steven knelt to unfold Wallace’s linen pants and ghost them back up his taut calves and tight thighs, Wallace thankful for the assistance. When he knelt, the traces of Wallace’s ecstatic throes became visible in red, uneven paths of lace. Wallace admired the beauty in them. They had gone at it hard, and while he had no reservations or regrets about this matter, both needed to recover; sleep and a hot bath would do that for them. Steven offered him the loose cornflower blouse and stepped into his own pants as Wallace slipped the garment overhead. Their undergarments were stashed covertly in his beret and tucked under his arm, neither of them bothering with slipping on such insignificant articles. The moon was beginning to set overhead, though they still had hours of night left. It was with this knowledge that Steven felt unbothered to button his graphite shirt. Chest exposed, the littering of kiss bruises stood out in the whitish moonlight in bloom. Wallace pressed a few barely-there apologies to the marks with soft lips. Steven took Wallace’s hand and led them back to where their shoes were tucked safe and waiting, though a bit over blown with sand from the night breeze. Steven knelt and picked up both pairs, consigning them to walk barefoot back to his cottage. It would be pleasant to feel the smooth stone of the walkway under them since Mossdeep’s cautious citizenship did its due diligence to keep the cape town clean.

Two bodies cutting a shared silhouette against skies bluer than midnight were all that existed in this space and time, cut in the interlude of twinkling stars and whispering waves. The world held the two in oblivion as they shared each other’s company in reflective silence on the way home, admiring the clarity of the night. The candescent cottage heralded in the last bit of light the city had to offer, even the Pokémon Center taking a bit of respite for the night and letting their lights dim. Refulgent, the warm yellow flooded from the open windows and beaconed them home in their own personal light house. Up the three low steps Wallace was lead by gentle hand, and touched by a memory ghosting from their past.

Steven had once invited him to this cottage while standing on the floor of Wallace’s Sootopolitan home, admiring the subtle flair indicative of Wallace’s tastes. _“I’d love to show you my home,”_ he had told him with a smile behind a pensive hand which rested upon his chin, _“though you’ll have to forgive the rather sparse décor.”_

And sparse it had been. The first time Wallace entered this threshold, much as he was now in the present guided by Steven with a gentle clasp of his hand, he had instantly noticed that Steven had little more than the barest necessities – a bed, stove, table, a bathroom and wardrobe hiding somewhere. The only fixtures that deviated from the amenities were two glass cases filled with glittering stones that Wallace at the time did not know the names of. Now he could educate you on each precious fragment with closed eyes, down to the exact area of Hoenn they came from and what formations and processes forged them millions of years ago. Over the years they had added more from other regions, Steven’s travels conveniently coinciding with Wallace’s. There were rumors that it had been a honeymoon as the two champions had left the region on their travels – Brendan had made such a lovely champion while filling in through their absence – and these were only further perpetuated when it made media news that Wallace now sported a sapphire ring on a very significant finger, but neither man would confirm nor deny.

Steven pulled Wallace through their shared space to the arch in the wall that gave way to their bedroom, which was untouched by the light left from the living area. Steven steadied Wallace in the entry way, who instead settled for leaning his weight on the eave, and moved through the dark bedroom alone as to minimize any risk of Wallace’s legs giving out and him stumbling. Steven held a smirk to himself – Wallace had the uncanny condition of shaking thighs after climax, and Steven found this undeniably adorable. Wallace’s legs would tremble for hours after, especially if he tried to put any weight on them; Steven made for no loss of enjoyment at the fact.

The bedroom gave way to their bath where Steven’s fingers fumbled along the wall until he made contact with the light switch. Lambency awash over the decent sized room, Wallace took the light signal as his cue to join Steven. The former Champion made move to rush and support him, but Wallace waved him away with a dither of his hand in gesture that he was fine and could walk on his own. Since they had made it back to the cottage, their entire conversation had been a silent read of the other’s gestures and actions. They didn’t need words to know what was requested; Wallace’s _“Draw the bath,”_ was said in the roll of his tired shoulders and the abandon of his beret next to where Steven had knelt to place their shoes in the entryway. In turn, Steven’s _“Give me but a moment,”_ was answered by his fond grip to Wallace’s shoulder and the lingering trace as he ran his still-pruned fingertips down the back of his arm. Their fingers had caught for a moment by design when Steven rocked back onto one of his heels as he pulled away to head further in. The last digits locked together in a lingering grip from Steven unable to satisfy the need to be with his partner. 

Wallace watched through low blue lashes as Steven rolled his sleeves and sat on the edge of their expansive bathtub. It hadn’t always been a bath, and for a moment Wallace remembered when it was just a single-person shower and all the illicit things they had done during their ablutions. He remembered begging for a plunge bath when he began to spend longer spells of time in Mossdeep, fully prepared to pay for the installation himself – which Steven had balked at and refused. The Steel Trainer agreed in that pensive manner of his, eyes downcast and his hand tucked with a forefinger pressed to his chin thoughtfully, and then cited how easy it would be for Wallace to ride his cock in a bath with all the ease of if he were discussing Devon Corp. stocks. The smooth, stone-cold delivery of his words caught Wallace so off guard that he had felt his cheeks become heated as he processed the information.

With the faucet now releasing a rush of steaming water, Steven removed his hand from the stream and looked up to Wallace. “What’s on your mind?”

“You,” Wallace hummed and sauntered towards the seated male. “Always you, Mr. Stone.”

Wallace crossed his arms over his hips to grasp the hem of his long blouse and twisted free from the light fabric. Steven watched the pivot of his linen clad hips whisper free after the neatly tied bow that held them up was intentionally undone with flourish and flare for his viewing pleasure. The fabric rushed away and once more his lover was shown to him in all the refinement of sinew and flesh pulled taut over sharp bones. Stevens hands met slender hips and he dipped to kiss just below Wallace’s navel.

“What of me?” Steven’s lips brushed his skin ever so softly as he spoke.

Wallace carded his fingers through Steven’s sky grey hair, tousled coarse from the sea salt, and smiled softly. “Just how damned charming you are.”

Wallace’s wandering hands didn’t stop where Steven’s soft fringe of hair ended, instead sought a path down his neck and muscular shoulders, under the cotton of his shirt. Wallace splayed his fingers and pushed the cloth over biceps and down forearms, breaking the hold on his hips, until it was crumpled unwanted on the floor next to them. Without looking away, Steven reached across the near-full tub and grasped the neck of a glass bottle filled with a pearly, viscous liquid the color of brûlée. He up-ended the stem and spilled the soap into their waiting bath, which frothed in thick clouds of bubbles.

“I think you’re mistaking me for you,” Steven chuckled, no bit of flirtation to his tone, only a humbleness. “You’re the one that is dazzling; I just like stones.”

This earned a trilling laughter from Wallace, who Steven joined in the mirth of their personal witticism as he stood up to kiss his smiling lips. Steven didn’t allow it to break as he unfastened the clasp of his slacks and let them fall away, now as nude as Wallace. Under the soft light, all of his love bites and stiletto thin scratch lines were hyper visible. With delicate fingers, Wallace skimmed over the fevered skin to palpate the flesh, triggering a cascade of twitching nerves down Steven’s chest. The sound of the tap shutting off and the roar of cashing water stilling came as a surprising sense of relief to Wallace after Steven pulled away to tend to the bath. He stepped in first and made sure the water wasn’t too hot, and then reached out to draw Wallace in with him. Together they eased beneath the froth and into another embrace.

Wallace settled himself back against Steven’s chest and slid low enough into the hot water that he could rest his head on the presented shoulder. Both men proffered their own winces at the temperature – Steven for the lines down his back, Wallace for the heat against his stretched hole. Yet ultimately their bodies inured and surrendered to the comfort settling into muscle and bone. Steven caged Wallace with arms resting outstretched on the rim of the tub and let forth a sigh that signaled his contentment.

This was important. This was crucial. It was these careful moments of togetherness that buffered the raw passion of their coupling and settled for the night. Steven submerged his hands and drew cupped palmfuls of water over Wallace’s arms and chest to rinse away the dried salt against his skin. Each handmade waterfall brought him closer to bliss.

Wallace moaned delicately, a sound sweeter than any he had given on this night. “I will never get tired of you touching me.”

Steven continued his lather and nuzzled a kiss to the shell of Wallace’s ear. “Good, because I’ll never tire of touching you.”

His hands dove under the surface after he was satisfied Wallace had been cleansed of the remnants of the sea and caressed both palms over the tops of the man’s thighs. He delved between them and coaxed them apart; Wallace put forth no resistance. There was intent, Wallace knew, and shivered when Steven’s hand encircled his softened manhood with a careful pull. No inch of him would go unclean under Steven’s delicate persistence. It had always been this way, always a task Steven took up unprompted, near ritualistic in his tender attentions. Each time they coupled, Steven always ensured that Wallace was sound and free from any hurt, that he felt comfortable after they had finished, and was cleaned of any bit of their activity that still clung to him. The first time they had had sex, the tenderness which Steven had cradled him and continuously checked for reassurance that _“no, I am not hurt”_ and _“yes I enjoyed it”_ , and the sheer gentleness of Steven offering, no asking permission _“may I help clear this away”_ to clean him shook Wallace to the point of tears. It was, of course, in part to blame the endorphin high he was coming down from to the confirmation of hundreds of emotions he had been hiding away from Steven for so long, but it didn’t help his embarrassment in the slightest. _“How are you so good at this?”_ he had asked through drying tears, much to Steven’s confusion. Aftercare, Wallace had educated him on the term, to which Steven had told him _“doing the right thing and taking care of you doesn’t require a name.”_

So it was, their shared ritual of concern and care, upheld by each of them. Steven’s middle finger grazed over Wallace in warning, to which he bit down on his lower lip and gave a slight nod on affirmation. He too had done this to Steven, cleaned him of his own essence in the very same manner, giving the same assiduity that he had many a time been at the opposite hand of. Discomfort abated when Steven was finished and drew away, the last of his traces dissolving in an ephemeral opalescence in the heat of the water.

Wallace’s nosed against the cord of Stevens neck and pulled his arms around him, sore and wanting to be held. The ends of his long tresses swirled on the surface of their bath, rivers of aquamarine atop the clear shallow. He arched when Steven prompted him to so that he could rope the thick curtain of silk around his fist. Steven gathered his hair out from under him and wound the strands in a loose plait so he could lay back in comfort without having it pulled between them.

“This has gotten so long in our time together,” Steven mused, making a small loop of blue between his thumb and index finger.

“To think,” Wallace hummed, settling his eyes closed and softly sighing, “it used to be as short as yours.”

Steven gazed over his partner pillowed so comfortably in his arms and allowed himself to be absorbed in the magnitude of his feelings for the man. There was no hesitancy in Wallace when he relied on Steven to support his head when he dipped under the surface to the line of turquoise that framed his temples. Steven supported him and released his fist to untangle long wefts of hair beneath the warm water. He treasured each smooth strand that passed between his fingers and knew in that moment, as he had affirmed many moments over, this was where he wanted to be for the rest of his days.

Meeting Wallace had marked the turning point in his life with a big black X asserting _your life starts_ here. His life previously had been a predestined dead-end rife with uncertainty, as the Devon heir struggled between the clear-cut life of a CEO he was set in line to be, and the question of if that was what he truly wanted. He poured soap through Wallace’s long tresses and remembered that yes, it had been as short as his when they met, both younger than they were now. They had grown up similarly, raised in their own bubble and born into familial roles, Steven’s his father’s company and Wallace’s his sacred duty as a guardian of the Cave of Origin. However, Wallace hadn’t let his fated succession define his life. He left Sootopolis to see the world, to culture and educate himself, whereas Steven had hardly left Rustboro outside holiday with his family. It was when they met in Slateport City, Steven’s family on business and Wallace having made his first voyage away from home on the back of a Wailmer, Steven felt his entire perspective shift right then. For the first time in his life, mere hours after meeting this energetic, beautiful man, he was certain of what path he wanted to take in life. He felt eager to make plans to gear his life in that direction, utterly inspired by Wallace’s bravery and drive. Wallace had managed to wash away his worries as easily Steven now rinsed away the soap in his locks, and he could never not be thankful for that.

Their travels, while independent, lead them back to the other over and over, fate enlacing their paths in twin helixes that for no matter how far apart they went, they would meet again. Before they knew it, Wallace had surpassed and succeeded his mentor as Sootopolis’ Gym Leader, and Steven had worked his way past the Elite Four and taken Hoenn’s Champion title as his own. Time had drained quicker than the tepid water of their bath and these memories were fond but distant. Steven drew himself back into the present as languidly he drew Wallace into a plush, soot colored towel and focused on his companion in front of him. Turquoise eyes blinked down at him from below the towel as Wallace wriggled his way from where Steven softly dabbed his hair dry. In them he saw oceans of cunning and allure, and a deep weight in Steven’s chest told him those eyes were what he wanted to wake up to every day.

“You’re going sentimental on me,” Wallace chided, now dried and coaxing his lover to bed with the pitter-patter of soft feet on cold stone lost to the beat of the sprawling waltz between bath and bedchamber. “I can see it in those rainy eyes of yours.”

A bare back hit plush comforters and splayed hands framed slender hips as Steven pinned Wallace to their bed with an exchange of tongues and stolen breaths. Neither of them had the energy to go again this late in the night – well, they would both argue that – and Steven was rolling off Wallace and onto the down pillows. Wallace protested at the lost of weight with a displease chirp, but he was sated when Steven pulled him against his chest. He settled into the rhythm of petting the older male’s hair, a motion that would easily lull them both to sleep. Wallace drew the down comforter up and nestled down at Steven’s side, off-handedly being reminded of a nest of Altaria.

“You,” Steven mused when they had both quieted down and felt the first dregs of sleep start to pull at them, “are no better. I catch you giving me looks all the time. Besides, you are so incredible how could I not? I cherish you, Wallace.”

Wallace sighed sweetly and kissed where he could on Steven’s pec. “Steven Stone, I do look forward to giving the rest of my life to you.”

They melded into one and fell away to a few soft _goodnights_ and then the heavy breaths of sleep. Meanwhile the heavy full moon was losing its hold on the indigo skies of Mossdeep and pulling the stars with it as Hoenn’s sun peered at the edges of the watery horizon. The two men would sleep well past its meridian and awake well-rested, ready to step into the next pages of their personal narrative.

All was right in these still tides left over from crashing passions, ready for the moon to take hold and begin anew.

[END]

**Author's Note:**

> Lumoise Twist - a personal play on the classic french twist hairstyle  
> [Note: I’m hoping to have a reference of this, as well as some other art for this fic, on my instagram @Imriel_Montreve]


End file.
